Ranking the Schools out West

authors note: I originally wrote this piece “The Company You Keep” in late 2018. It’s intention was to compare Idaho to the other division 1 institutes out west. In statistics I saw relevant with intentions of creating new a FBS Conference, using the “Front Porch Argument”. I ened up not posting it because I felt it lack anything solid to my argument of needing a new land grant FBS conference and had to many cherry picked stats and ignored the others.

However, with the recent development at Eastern Washington about cutting athletics. This coupled with our upcoming FCS v FBS live podcast on April 17th. The research I preformed provides a bit of a lense on Eastern and Idaho in the greater picture out west.

The numbers used are slightly outdated now. This is being published simply because I now feel it provides some additional information in the wake of current news. It does not fit the narrative initially used through the piece.

The Company You Keep.

There have been many opinions on Idaho in the FCS. I want to compare the situation with something not talk as much about. Where are Idahos “Peer” Institute? FBS or FCS? People say football is the front porch to a university. They never talk about the neighborhood the front porch is in. Now decide if it is better to have the best front porch in the least desirable neighborhood or the worst front porch in the most desirable neighborhood. Today we are going to look at all the “Western” neighborhoods and have people decide where they think Idaho’s front porch would be best located.

I am going to do my best to layout just the statistics and let people come to their own conclusions. After reading article I encourage everyone to comment below or tweet us @TubsAtTheClub with what you found from article. I will provide some commentary after each statistical grouping.

I am going to limit this to the west. West will be as if you trace the border from south to north of the Texas Louisiana border and on its way north of States with DI sports. I also leave out the state of Texas. The reason I do this is simply the Eastern seaboard, Midwest, South & Texas just have more quantity of schools and history, paired with different challenges from the west. The West is very different in university structure then the rest.

One of the biggest things is Land Grant institutions. Land grant institutes will be typically the most similar Universities to Idaho. Another being Endowment and Enrollment. For Athletics, we are going to look at Facilities (to the best of our abilities), Attendance and budget.

These will be broken down in 4 “Neighborhoods” Pac 12, Mountain West, Big Sky & other. The first 3 are obviously western conferences. The “other” category is made of independents out west or schools belonging to other conferences along our imaginary boundary we setup for the west.

The Land Grant institutions in the states we are considering possible peer institutes are:

North Dakota State

South Dakota State

Nebraska

Kansas State

Oklahoma State

Montana State

Wyoming

Colorado State

New Mexico State

Idaho

Utah State

Arizona

Washington State

Oregon State

Nevada-Reno

California – Berkeley

Hawaii – Manoa

ENDOWMENT

According to the 2016 Endowment Numbers Idaho’s Endowment is $237.5 Million. We are going to look at Schools in the west from top to bottom to see where we rank.

Now that we see where everyone in the conferences out west rank lets rank all schools 1 through 50 in all the categories above and this should start What 12-13 schools are most similar in all subjects. I will then sort everyone by their average finish in the categories and create 4 new “Neighborhoods” as they were.

Endowment

Enrollment

School Ranking

Stadium Capacity

1. Stanford

2. USC

3. Washington

4. UCLA

5. UC Davis

6. Cal-Berkeley

7. Oklahoma

8. Nebraska

9. Kansas

10. Colorado

11. Utah

12. Tulsa

13. Washington State

14. Oklahoma State

15. Oregon

16. Arizona

17. Arizona State

18. Oregon State

19. Kansas state

20. San Diego

21. Wyoming

22. New Mexico

23. Utah State

24. Nevada

25. Colorado State

26. Hawaii

27. Idaho

28. UNLV

29. North Dakota

30. San Diego State

31. New Mexico State

32. South Dakota

33. Cal Poly

34. Montana

35. North Dakota State

36. Fresno State

37. Northern Arizona

38. Montana State

39. San Jose State

40. Weber State

41. South Dakota State

42. Boise State

43. Portland State

44. Idaho State

45. Sacramento State

46. Eastern Washington

47. Southern Utah

1. UCLA

2. USC

3. Arizona State

4. UC Davis

5. Arizona

6. Washington

7. BYU

8. Northern Arizona

9. Sacramento State

10. Cal-Berkeley

11. San Diego State

12. Washington State

13. Colorado

14. Weber State

15. San Jose State

16. Portland State

17. Colorado State

18. Oregon State

19. UNLV

20. Utah

21. Utah State

22. Oregon

23. Oklahoma

24. Fresno State

25. Cal Poly

26. Nebraska

27. Oklahoma State

28. Boise State

29. New Mexico

30. Kansas

31. Kansas State

32. Nevada

33. Montana State

34. North Dakota

35. Idaho state

36. Northern Colorado

37. Hawaii

38. Eastern Washington

39. Idaho

40. North Dakota State

41. New Mexico State

42. South Dakota State

43. Montana

44. South Dakota

45. Wyoming

46. Southern Utah

47. San Diego

48. Stanford

49. Air Force

50. Tulsa

1. Stanford

2. UCLA

3. Cal-Berkeley

3. USC

5. UC Davis

6. Washington

7. BYU

8. San Diego

9. Colorado

10. Oregon

11. Tulsa

11. Arizona

13. Arizona State

14. Utah

15. San Diego State

16. Nebraska

16. Kansas

18. Washington State

18. Oregon State

18. Colorado State

21. Kansas State

22. Oklahoma State

22. Hawaii

24. Idaho

25. Wyoming

26. New Mexico

27. Nevada

27. Montana

29. Montana State

29. Utah State

29. Fresno State

29. North Dakota

33. North Dakota State

34. New Mexico State

35. South Dakota state

35. South Dakota

37. Northern Colorado

37. Northern Arizona

37. Portland State

37. UNLV

37. Boise State

42. Oklahoma

42. San Jose State

42. Air Force

42. Eastern Washington

42. Southern Utah

42. Sacramento State

42. Weber State

42. Cal Poly

42. Idaho State

1. UCLA

2. Oklahoma

3. Nebraska

4. USC

5. San Diego State

6. Washington

7. BYU

8. Cal-Berkeley

9. Oklahoma state

10. Arizona State

11. Arizona

12. Oregon

13. Stanford

14. Colorado

15. Kansas

16. Kansas State

17. Hawaii

18. Air Force

19. Utah

20. Oregon State

21. Colorado State

22. Fresno State

23. New Mexico

24. UNLV

25. Boise State

26. Washington State

27. San Jose State

28. New Mexico State

29. Tulsa

30. Wyoming

31. Nevada

32. Utah state

33. Montana

34. Sacramento State

35. South Dakota State

36. North Dakota State

37. Montana State

38. Weber State

39. Idaho

40. Northern Arizona

41. North Dakota

42. Idaho State

43. Cal Poly

44. UC Davis

45. South Dakota

46. Eastern Washington

47. Northern Colorado

48. Southern Utah

49. Portland State

50. San Diego

Interesting takeaways. Stanford literally might lose an amount larger than Eastern Washington’s Endowment and not even notice. The whole Pac 12 is by far the best neighborhood in terms of Endowment. I know what a surprise (just like Boise States Endowment). There numbers are extremely high (except poor Oregon State) while having 4 land grant institutions.

Some more surprising statistics when looking at these numbers (other than Southern Utah not existing apparently) is Idaho would be Smack dab in the middle of Mountain west conference; which contains 5 of the 17 Land Grant institutions out west.

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About the Editor

Sean Kramer
A proud 2014 University of Idaho graduate and washed up journalist who started a website because I still had hot takes and things to say about Vandal sports. I've established my platform and now I want to give you the chance to use it. Tubs at the Club now belongs to you - The Vandal fan, the Vandal Alum, the current Vandal, the Vandal employee ... Whatever your connection I want this website to be yours. Thank you for supporting my endeavor and welcome to Tubs at the Club.